Kevin Beal

No, every single company is an example, so is dating and most of life itself. It's only in statist situations where there is central planning and other barriers preventing people from cooperating in ways that benefit them economically is it rare. It's rare in protection and dispute resolution, it's rare in war, rare in education etc. It's the norm in business or personal relationships.

lacking integrity and honor in a debate is what it means to call someone a troll. And you made this accusation (apparently) on the basis that you disagree which is what was the standard you provided for someone who lacks integrity and honor (or is a troll). I'm arguing that you are being hypocritical.

Competition fosters cooperation such as in the case of cell phone towers being shared between different carriers, or bulk rates for other competing stores or the cooperation within a single company. Cooperation and competition are not mutually exclusive.

To call someone a troll is to say they lack integrity and honor. You are calling him a troll and I've yet to see you make any arguments, you just say you disagree and the burden of proof is on them. Isn't that kind of hypocritical of you?

I'm not so sure the onus is on anyone to demonstrate that spanking is abuse, but I'm just curious. Is the onus that spanking "teaches" better behavior on you to demonstrate? I wonder how reciprocal this is. Nospank.net has a lot of resources, studies and arguments demonstrating that spanking is abuse, but I'm wondering why that was ever in question. To me it seems obvious.

This video seemed relevant and well argued.

During much of my life at school I was regularly harrassed. So were a lot of other boys. I'm not convinced it is a statistical issue, but I'm open to hearing some.

Just to add to what Xelent said, I've also received unwanted attention from the ladies, have been harrassed and recieved a similar scar for similar reasons. So I didn't find this definition of privilege to be particularly compelling. I'm sure I am privileged in some ways, just not in that way. That's my experience.

I return your definitions. Parents (noun): 1. People who buy you clothes, feed you, put a roof over your head, throw you parties, transport you, provide you medical care, buy you ice cream, and use violence as a means of placing you at the bottom of an authoritarian power structure. 2. People against whom you cannot physically defend yourself. 3. Administrators of a welfare state Family (noun): 1. An organization with rules and procedures which supersede all other authority. 2. A welfare state I won't pretend to find the sense in whatever this was supposed to mean. ^^^ Passive aggressive post ^^^

Because you explained away my inability to see what you see as privilege because I'm male, and you are male so that seemed to me inconsistent. What makes you so special?

Welcome to the boards Daisy! I'm so sorry you were subjected to that. That is terrible. And I'm glad you are finding so much value in voluntaryism. Have you considered psychotherapy? I've been going regularly for two years and have been finding it enormously helpful, and I think compliments philosophy really well. Stef (and others) make some good arguments for therapy if you're interested:

I'm happy to hear you are so motivated and enthusiastic. And sorry to hear about school There seem to be a lot of technology junkies and entrepreneurial types in this community and on the boards which is cool. I am hoping to do something similar in the area of software development. Welcome to the boards!

So Ian; can I call you Ian? How did you figure all this out? I'm assuming you are male. I find it confusing that I could not see something so obvious, that would seem to me to only require basic empathy and the eyes to see, ... to see. I've talked to lots of women and I never got the impression that they lived in fear of men's abuses, or if I did it was very rare. I come from a very poor family and area and did see a bit of violence growing up, and I've known people who lived in fear of abuse (almost all children), so I would think that I could recognize it if it were there. How could you explain my blindness of this very serious problem? I've heard this kind of thing before that white males have a privilege that makes them blind to seeing the truth of women's issues and racial issues and I'm inclined to believe that I'm not blind (at least not that blind). Does that sound like a reasonable criticism?

You make a good point. I'm not sure how to quantify it exactly and I could definitely be doing the confirmation bias thing. Maybe I'm drawn to shows that portray men poorly, but I definitely have noticed it happening as compared to women in the same shows. I mean I could name off some shows that have misandric elements and I am not familiar with most of the shows you mentioned, but I'll buy that it could be confirmation bias.

I ultimately agree with what you said Greg, but I think that this statement is not true. That is unless TV has changed pretty dramatically in the past 4 years I stopped watching it. I remember even as a kid thinking that men were being portrayed pretty negatively, before I ever heard about FDR or the MRM. Not that women get it good either on TV, but at least for me anecdotally they got it better than men. I have that bias though and could have just noticed it more with men than with women, or the stupid men and not the good men. At the very least I don't think it's a given what you said. Maybe you could provide a citation

I think you might be being too quick to discount yourself here. I think there is definitely something to a lot of MGTOW stuff being what you said about not having control and creating a false sense of control. At least it would make sense to me. And I think that's why there are MGTOW. I think it has a lot more to do with what you said than what most MGTOW are saying. I mean, I'm not any kind of expert or anything, but I've been following it somewhat closely for the past year, people like Barbarrossaaaa and Stardusk and these sorts of people. And that's the impression I get. I totally agree, for what it's worth.

A danger of using collectivist concepts and ascribing characteristics is that you make generalizations like "You Stefbots have truly lost it, haven't you?" Maybe species is more valid a collective in whatever respect, idk, but your statement is obviously unfair and unnecessarily antagonistic.

I would definitely agree with that. Also I actually sympathize a lot with MGTOW. I don't mean to pick on them necessarily. I've had no luck making the argument that people bring their grievances to people in their real lives, MGTOW or otherwise. And there are definitely a lot of reasons not to do that. It would be a conscious decision on their part though and would take actual courage and I feel very grateful to myself that I did it. (I want it to be their decision and not a decision made for them. Stephen C's comment really hit home for me.)

I think that a lot of it is ex post facto thinking for sure, but many MGTOW claim they get sex and could have girlfriends if they sought it out and I'm inclined to believe them. There tend to be a lot of fatalistic arguments they put forward (see Briffault's Law) and they all seem to uniformly oppose psychotherapy from what I can tell and that stuff all smells of confirmation bias, of course. Whenever I have suggested that they hold the corrupt women in their lives accountable they get very mad at me. That would be their decision, and that decision is to do nothing.

JohnTheOther is actually a fan of Stef's and borrowed the phrase "gun in the room" in a few of his videos. He's also tried to introduce UPB to his audience on youtube. GirlWritesWhat and ManWomanMyth also appear to be libertarian leaning. And of course there's RockingMrE, but none of these people are MGTOW.

I wear my FDR T from spreadshirt all the time! The black one with the logo on the front and back. I was actually considering buying another FDR shirt. I would definitely be interested in seeing some new designs. A hoodie would interest me as well. My favorite ideas were the quotes! I thought it was cool that Jeffrey Tucker was included in the shirt themes and a bowtie shirt does actually seem like a fun idea There was a funny comment on youtube about Jeff that said "Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Jeffrey Tucker pajamas."

I got a mac after being a PC guy for years and I immediately loved it and don't ever plan on going back.