Kevin Beal

Opposite Statements can absolutely have opposites. That is to say that a diametrically different; of a contrary type. "Negation" is opposite, but also any other kind of mutually exclusive proposition (to the degree to which it is mutually exclusive). UPB looks at theories and it's two primary standards are logical consistency and universality. So obviously UPB is concerned with opposing moral propositions. You cannot say that there are no "opposites" in logic simply by saying that "3 is not the opposite of 4", and especially without defining "opposite". It's just sort of lazy.

I just discovered this guy Dave Asprey (the "bulletproof executive") who is super interesting. He does a lot of marketing in his speeches and interviews which sort of put me off just a tad, but the guy has a shit load of interesting stuff to say about nutrition and technology as it relates to a healthier body and mind. Like he puts strange electrodes on his head to induce "gamma state" in the brain. He also makes a very interesting point about healing the brain. He talks about how the brain has no nerve endings really (save for a few spots) and that it doesn't really know when it's traumatized the way that a broken arm will hurt like hell, send the appropriate hormones (and whatever else that's involved with healing, idk) etc. So there are biofeedback machines that measure all kinds of things that help you consciously see objective measures indicating how stressed you are (for example). The most interesting is a machine he talks about that senses how and where you are using your brain and puts out different tones and different volumes based on that data, so that the brain can actually see itself. Without you even doing anything the brain can see where it's hurt and heal it appropriately. It can also affect IQ he claims. He has an interview on the Joe Rogan show which is awesome and why I became so excited to see Stef on the show.

Very interesting. In what ways would you like to see men stepping up? Personally, I think that (at least for myself) stepping up is mostly just putting myself out there and being willing to make mistakes and / or be rejected. I think it would be really great to see more men do that kind of thing. Maybe it's just projection or something, but I see most guys have a very limited area that they feel it safe to have strong opinions like with sports or politics or something like that, and it's sometimes really difficult to lure guys like squirrels to acorns out into speaking their minds about things like relationships, about what it means to be a man and that sort of thing. It seems like a real shame. I don't know for sure, but I don't think that's really as much of a problem for women, as they are kind of looked to by most people as being the ones who get relationships, get empathy and emotional health, so I see a little more inhibition there. Is that sort of what you mean?

Great call this week! I'd really encourage others to try it I can get anxious about this sort of thing, like what if I mess it up in some way or some other insecurity, but the folks and the format are great so I'd encourage you (if you are on the fence) to push through that a bit and give it a shot. It was my first time calling in, and the diversity of opinion was really interesting I thought. Thanks Phil for putting this on. I'm totally on for next week if there's a show next week!

I am not a programmer, and have done very little of it. I've been scripting in PHP and Javascript almost everyday for the past 3 years, and it's never made much sense to me why anyone would ever want to become a programmer. If you want to create actual programs, then you are going to have a very limited amount of exposure, or they are web-based solutions done on some server somewhere, in which case I would be WAY more inclined to use a scripting language that isn't ridiculously verbose (like any C based language). Anything that compiles and doesn't have to cache is going to be faster (in most cases), but if programmers have that concern about PHP or server-side javascript or Python or something like that, then either they are working on sites that see millions of users a day or they are micro-optimizing which is the least helpful kind of optimizing. Scripting languages are way less daunting, have bigger better online support and are much more enjoyable to write. They are way less strict which means it's easier to write bad code than to write good code, but that's more than worth it to get people involved. And getting involved in web development has never been so easy as it is today between all the frameworks, libraries and services out there to handle all the stuff you'd rather not. I don't understand why people would want to get involved in programming. If you are a computer scientist and you like low level handling of memory and all that jazz then that's cool, but personally, I find that stuff boring. I'd rather create custom and complex interfaces within days using simple HTML, CSS and Javascript (and a REST server). And if you are trying to get started in the world of software development, you should really be putting as few barriers in front of you as possible. The goals should be the goal, and not the process. I got involved in scripting languages because I wanted to do cool things, and not to learn the endless over-complexities of languages like C++. That being said, the Go programming language looks pretty cool. It's not exactly statically or dynamically typed, it's not exactly low level or high level programming. It's not exactly object oriented (at least in the classical sense) or procedural. It handles concurrency really well and it's compile time is negligible. It's like what I think (not being a programmer) programming should be. /rant

The youngest one actually, but she was maybe the most mystical. She apparently talks to the dead... And I was anxious too when I did it, but I felt it necessary to do something, anything about what was up to that point an overwhelming experience. And when it happened, I thought for sure it would backfire

I think you are totally right. Why would there be such a thing as masculine traits if it could just as easily apply to women. If by chance this was at all in reference to the last post I made where I said there may be times a guy might do feminine things and a gal masculine things, I was more referring to things that are often defined as feminine which I don't actually think are distinctly feminine traits, such as vulnerability, or assertiveness solely masculine. I think the definitions of these things are used in ways by most people that often don't make a whole lot of sense. At least to me. I also really appreciate your thoughts on the PC-ness of it all, and in the spirit of being irreverent I thought I would share something that is sure to offend some people. I was recently working with a group of older women for 8 hours around a table and they were speaking constantly, and constantly over each other. And the conversation was painfully dull. It was either trivial or about other people who I don't know and there were details I didn't want to know. I've noticed this dynamic a lot among certain types of women. The gossip, the framing of debates, the character assassination, the positioning of status in the social hierarchy, the threat narratives, all without any reference to any of the necessary reasoning toward drawing their conclusions. This happens to a much smaller degree around sports with men, but this is mostly the domain of women (especially with the irrationality). It was really irritating and I knew that I was going to have to do something or else I would go crazy or just completely resent the situation, so I started challenging one of them on something (it doesn't really matter what, suffice it to say that she was wrong) and I got confusion back and a re-stating of her position. I pointed out a fatal logical contradiction and she said it was "her opinion that it's not a contradiction". I reworded it another way to highlight the contradiction and then she accused me of provoking her, saying basically that I shouldn't challenge her on things when she just wants to be right. So I stopped there. The conversation was slower going from then on and much more bearable for me. Later on the other two gals expressed appreciation that I had challenged her. I was surprised by that. I'm used to being portrayed as a jerk for calling people on the bullshit they say, especially women. I wonder sometimes if bringing certainty and logic to gossip circles is a worthwhile thing to do. Like, is it the case that too much feminine girl time can be pathological without having a man step in and bring the hammer of truth down? Is that something that more honest women could appreciate? I don't know. But I've been thinking a lot about that recently and that whole dynamic is very interesting to me. There is a gal on YouTube that goes by the name TyphonBlue who has a really great series of videos on how many women gain status by forming a consensus in the group of women they are in. Making some woman she's in conflict with out to be the bad guy and her the poor victim. I've seen that a lot actually and wonder how natural or ubiquitous that is.

Thanks for posting! Yea. I totally relate. I've run into the same thing for sure. I've seen some of the ladies respond with confusion and acute discomfort. I just imagine that what they are thinking is something like "omg, am I going to have to be the man in this relationship?" which totally sucks. Depending on how we are defining things, I think it's not unreasonable to sometimes take the feminine position in relationship and for a gal to be the masculine one. And maybe there is some danger in that part alone. To think that vulnerability is a female trait (which in many ways it is) at the exclusion of seeing men as vulnerable. Or, like you said, men have to earn it. Why is that you think?

Well, technically speaking, abstract doesn't mean vague, subjective or personal. Numbers are abstract for instance. I think you're right though about definitions. Part of the reason I started this thread was to get how people are defining masculinity. How you or I relate to ourselves as men is of interest to me. It doesn't need to apply to every man, but it should apply to being a man. That would have to be a bare minimum I would think in arriving at some definition / standard is that it describes being a man, what makes men men (beyond the obvious biological traits). Well, definitely not. I'm certainly not trying to impose anything on anyone. Was there something specifically that was said that gave you that impression? Possibly... I can't really say since you were unfortunately pretty darn vague If we can come to understand something about reality or the people in it then that is objectivity. We can be objective about things that are subjective too. For example, the scale of values that people has for different goods is subjective, but the science of economics which measures those things is objective. So to be a little more specific, I have a distinctly different relationship to the men in my life as compared to the relationship I do with women. I relate to men differently than I do women. There are the practical things like spending too much time with a married woman, or flirting with men (since I am straight) that have a lot to do with my sex, and then there are things about my relationships with other men that go beyond sharing the same gender as them, that are distinctly male. (If I were a woman hanging with women, it would be different obviously). I too think that male vulnerability should be less of a taboo, and I think there is something to being a man that includes a different kind of vulnerability. What do you think?

I really appreciate the point about the nature of the physiology creating different priorities, as I also am hesitant to accept nature (vs nurture) explanations for things. Just seems too fatalistic to me. That's an interesting approach that I haven't thought about (at least in this regard). But I have to take issue with the point about generalizations. This is one of those things that irks me. I mean, if you take the time to add the qualifier "generally" then that is to imply that there are exceptions. And this is not necessarily you, right, but whenever there is a discussion about the differences between the sexes (or between cultures or any other politically over-corrected topic), there is always a significant resistance to the idea that men and women really are very different. Often the reasoning is that collectives of people believing that certain traits are inherent (or so ubiquitous to make it not matter) leads to bigotry against those groups. That is, generally speaking I'm certain that making mistakes about how men or women are is going to happen, and I'm also certain that (for the most part) it's not going to matter very much. It's not that people are wrong or irrational about things that is the problem there. When people are being bigoted they are unwilling to listen to counter argument and attack anyone who is trying to bring reason to the discussion. The fact that slave owners felt it right to own slaves is not because of mere ignorance. It takes active willful ignorance not to see the obvious irrationality there, the rationalizing they used is ex post facto. To your point, the guy who likes the flowers being told that generally women like flowers and not guys, does sound to me like it could be some of that "don't be a woman / sissy" stuff. At least I would feel guarded if someone told me that about my love of flowers. But I'm curious why you felt this was important to bring up. Like, do you think that this sort of "don't be a woman" thing is going on here in this thread? Or are you afraid it might later? Maybe it's just my own paranoia or being defensive or something, but that's why I took issue with your thoughts on generalizations. I hope that makes sense. It's one of those things I see a lot, and it could just be hyper-awareness, but I think it's important to notice and talk about.

Thanks for posting! I really appreciate the insight, but this paragraph is a little dubious, I think. I don't understand why you would be worried about generalizations like hair length. Personally, I find generalizations incredibly helpful even if they don't fit together perfectly. I recognize this is a common occurrence, and I would imagine that we all do. I know there are women who could beat me up (if they wanted to) and men who like flowers a lot. That doesn't bother me. I realize you didn't actually say this, but there is this idea that it's our generalizations that lead to bigotry, so that if we say that women generally like flowers and guys don't then it's going to lead to us bullying guys who like flowers. I have heard this kind of thing all my life and I think it's complete horseshit (pardon my french). Bigotry is not irrationality, it's anti-rationality (if loosely fitting generalizations could even be described as "irrational"). So when you say it's "quite worrisome" I just imagine you thinking "oh no! what are we going to do about people who think medium length hair applies to only one sex or to the wrong one!" (dramatized for my own amusement, of course). Also there is of course masculinity as compared to femininity, which is the compliment or negation of feminine traits. That's all very interesting and I'm sure there is a lot to learn from that (maybe you could elaborate?), but obviously there is more to it than just that. Men and women are almost separate species evolving somewhat independently from each other and that's very interesting to me. There are two things that bother me a tad about defining masculinity by it's compliment: femininity. The first is that simply describing dualities like receptivity vs assertiveness or strong vs tender doesn't (usually) explain very much. The second is that there is a troubling amount of this "be a man" or "a real man does X" that a lot of women like to engage in that comes from a kind of irrationality or bigotry, which makes men (or just me maybe) think that women just have no idea what it's like to be a man and should really stop that (especially considering how seriously men take women's opinions of them). I don't know what it's like to be a woman. Sincerely though, I'm very interested to hear more, especially what you found so helpful about the female brain book.

301: Price Controls and the Minimum Wage http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_301_Minimum_Wage_Price_Controls.mp3 As far as I understand it there are plans to improve this sort of thing, but it's a hell of a lot of work and there weren't that many people volunteering to help out. In the meantime I would suggest two things, first to google terms like "freedomain radio [my keyword]" (as the kind of results you want are on several different sites), and second to start tagging and time stamping podcasts. There are a decent number of finished ones I think, so I'd ask Mike (MMD) what podcasts would be the best to timestamp (I think he has an order to things he's working on). The Why you are Unemployed series also touches on minimum wages, and I'm sure it's come up tangentially in different sunday shows and listener conversations. If the error actually says "There appears to be an error with the database" it's a vague IPBoard generated error that shows up when the database migration from the old software wasn't exactly perfect. More here. Which doesn't make a lot of sense since there was no "issues tracker" in the old system. Maybe JamesP is working on something...?

If you define a priori as Wikipedia does like: And you define analytic propositions as Wikipedia does like: Then they are effectively the same thing. I could take the definition of analytic reasoning to be just a tautology, but then why would that be of any use to anyone? Rather I'd assume it means that you can work out the validity of a proposition through reason alone. I'm not a philosophy buff or anything, certainly not of the academic variety, but it would seem to me that if you can determine that something is true simply by virtue of it's meaning, then there is no evidence required. It's a priori. If I trade my five dollars with you for your pen, then you value the 5 dollars more than you value your pen and I value your pen more than my 5 dollars. That's both a priori and analytic reasoning.

So, I'm not seeing this on that thread. The h3 that is the top blue bar shown in the picture is part of the template served by IP board and not something that any one post (edited in HTML or otherwise) could alter. If you saw this but didn't see it after a refresh then it's probably just that your browser didn't fully render the page (slow internet connection?). If it persists after a refresh then I would assume that there is a PHP error somewhere on the page that was served with some accompanying HTML that itself included an un-closed tag. I would imagine that if the h3 itself were un-closed, then it's CSS properties would be applied to the rest of the post (a blue background, blue font etc).

I think being able to be spontaneous and make mistakes is highly underrated. I don't think it's possible to have a set of arguments prepared and rely on them the whole way. There's always going to be something unexpected come up, one of your pieces of evidence is called into question (even though the point is still valid) or something like that. I think in that way, it's more practice than anything else. And the best practice is principled practice. If you rely more on principles than conclusions, then you are going to be much more adaptable and on point.

We could take to the streets and have ourselves a good ol' fashion philosophy slut walk

If you think that your family has your back even though you dislike them, then that is a testable hypothesis. If they consistently come through for you, then great! If not, then that's something that will feel awful and propel you into action. Doing nothing and just taking it for granted, never testing it and building resentments as a result, is not a good place to be. Real Time Relationships goes into this stuff way in-depth.

Well that's a disappointment. We've regressed back into denial... I didn't say I was "outraged", that part was invented. In order for projection to occur, you must deny your own experience. If you truly thought that I was bullying you in my outrage, lying about what you were saying, endlessly denying and avoiding things, and you weren't offended, then it can only be because you aren't feeling your feelings. Or you think that I'm just insanely irrational / stupid and realize that it has nothing to do with you. But you don't think that though. The fact that you passive aggressively add that you will help me with my irrational feelings in another thread is the beautifully predictable response of someone who absolutely has taken it personally and is upset by it. You denying that is perfectly consistent with projection.

You've graduated from denial and are now projecting. You reject my "emotional outrage" while yourself outraged emotionally.

Nope. You said something didn't happen. I said it did, then I provided evidence for that, evidence counter to your own which you provided. It was taken from the first post you made in this thread. The post that launched this discussion in the first place. It is what I was referring to this entire time when I talked about the position you were putting forward implicitly. It's not like it's some insignificant quote, it's the post where you introduced your criticism. It was also filled with leading questions ("Or is it that, since they're far away, you don't care about them?") and a suspiciously exaggerated portrayal of your opponents ("It surprises me that on a board so incredibly sensitive to the treatment of children") (emphasis my own). It's not nothing or irrelevant, so please do not portray it as such. Do you honestly believe that anyone is pro-Syrian gov't? If not, then it's dishonest to portray it like it's some sort of inconsistency (which it so obviously isn't). ...also the point about hypocrisy vs inconsistency really irked me and stuck in my craw for days, lol. The actual dictionary definition is: If I'm saying that intervening in child abuse is good, but say that we shouldn't intervene in the murder of these Syrian children (the basis of the "possible inconsistency") then that is an accusation of hypocrisy. This is the first definition I looked up, and no others were given. It's the way that most people use the word "hypocrisy". So there!

This is a clear statement. The point being made here is obvious and was explicated in my syllogism above. You didn't say that it was a "possible inconsistency" until after you said this. This, after you were challenged on it. And I genuinely believe that you cannot see how you are doing this since you do it again below. There you did it again. I am against statism, but am only focusing on the American state and not the Syrian one (as if this were some sort of inconsistency). You are being much more direct then you claim in this last post. It is not presented as a "maybe" until it's convenient. That really bothers me, and I'd ask you to simply concede this point.

As far as having fun with the actual exploration of our histories goes (specifically regarding the trauma there), I think that it is actually possible. (Assuming fun = funny). I would make a distinction between looking at the actual acts involved, the neglect, the abuse and then looking at the irrationality that is behind those actions. For example, I would find it nearly impossible to laugh about the fact that I was made to feel small as a child, but the reasoning given for it is kind of hilarious. That I should put toxic people's needs before my own because that means that I'm the enlightened, mature and virtuous one. What?! The kinds of rationalizations I internalized are so crazy that I'm flabbergasted that I could have believed them in hindsight. At least, I find that kind of thing funny sometimes and have a good laugh about it. It's weird though, because I'm not finding that particular example funny at the moment. Using my desire for virtue against me and all. I swear it was funny the other day...

1) Vicarious self defense is justified. The proof for that is in UPB. 2) answered yes to #1 3) answered yes to #1 4) Something immoral here is immoral there. The location is completely irrelevant to the morality. I completely accept that it's evil to murder children with chemical weapons. It doesn't matter who is doing it either, it's still evil. And I wish that they weren't being murdered. None of that is inconsistent. There is no comparison to me intervening in child abuse in my hometown and the US doing targeted airstrikes in Syria. It is not inconsistent of me to intervene in child abuse and then condemn the US military in their wholly murderous pursuit. So I have a question for you: can you understand why I might take offense at this comparison? It is a comparison if the claim is that I'm being inconsistent. I don't know in what ways vicarious self defense can be justified in situations such as these, but there's no reason to believe that this war will finally be the one just war. We are, after all, talking about airstrikes in Syria. That's what the video is about. Also to the point that you are not making arguments but simply asking questions. This is untrue. You made a claim that people are being inconsistent, then you attempted to highlight the inconsistency through a series of questions. In that is a conclusion and some implied premises. Being that they are implied and you didn't really elaborate on the point I wanted you to the last two times I prompted it, I cannot quote you and must then translate. The argument is roughly: P1. Intervening in child abuse is good P2. The chemical attacks in Syria resulted in the deaths of children P3. People around these parts applaud intervention in child abuse when it is local P4. People here did not condemn the child murder in Syria, nor did they intervene in that child murder. Further they don't plan on intervening in the future the way they might intervene if it were local C1. People are being inconsistent about their application of the principle that it is good to intervene in child abuse C2. People care only about local children Since this argument is obviously false, I wanted you to make it explicit so that it's falseness would be apparent. A sort of Socratic dialog kind of thing. Assuming that my statements are true, then it might explain why you were accused of sophistry: making the worse argument appear the better.

Thanks I really like the format too. Seems like a great way to engage people in the call who might otherwise just listen and not talk. As for topics I think would be cool to talk about are things mostly around courage, doing things that make you feel fulfilled and living a happy life. That sort of thing. But I'm also kind of a slut for philosophy, I like it all. Economics, politics, metaphysics, psychology etc. So I'm easy like sunday morning

I don't know that this quite counts. I'm thinking more around self knowledge / personal liberty and it makes me think of the song "I Am Not a Robot" by Marina and the Diamonds. I love this song like crazy and made it my about me section because I identify so much with it. I especially like the sentiment that I am not a robot. I got like feelings, insecurities, culture-clashing values and the like. I could do without her describing not wanting to pick up the phone as "pathetic", but it is a mere sunspot on an otherwise glorious sun. Embedding youtube is not working for me