LovePrevails

I fully endors Stefan's response to this criticism As a leftist Chomsky has done more to advance the cause of human freedom and expose state crimes than the vast majority of libertarians and anarcho-capitalists

this is a question that concerns me as an animal lover and vegetarian for one thing there wouldn't be massive subsidies for meat and dairy so meat would likely be 7 times as expensive so people would buy eat and kill less of it plus the decrease in child abuse would lead to more empathic individuals who would be less inclined to mistreat and maybe even eat animals

thanks I had the "just items I follow" filter on

I heard Stef a few times make reference to the new data of how bad sitting is for us and thought a presentation of the evidence and facts could introduce this critical information to a wider audience, just a thought.

it displays one or at most two threads I actually have to sign out, click "view new posts" and then sign in again, it's been happening for months

This is a simple but heart-warming suggestion, I fully endorse it.

Documentary (Stefan could review it)

thanks I appreciate your openness to my reflections

It just read to me a bit like you were quashing his enthusiasm like a fragile egg of joy under a horses hoof lol A communication tip: Rather than say "why didn't you" if you try "next time you could...." and followed it up with lots of useful info on how to improve his approaches. This is less likely to be read as criticism and more likely to be seen as helpful, and the advice is more likely to be accepted. Just has an underlying feeling that the other person is an ok person and you are trying to help them rather than find fault.

Wazzums is it necessary to be so aggressive to other posters? particularly when they are enthusiastic about making some progress in their parenting? can you not assume they are doing what they know and gently educate ? Xtort that is good progress, although I would suggest that putting so much emphasis on "getting it right" and "having high expectations" because he is good may still be steering your poor son towards allowing his self-esteem to depend on his performance. It's important that he just enjoys playing and tries to get bullseyes because, hell, that's what archery is all about not because it is "good" - I don't know how clear I am well done improving your relationship with your son and his relationship with your wife I hope you can continue to do that

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI56uydkAsQ[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI56uydkAsQ[/media]

I thought we respected property rights hear

beautiful project hope you don't get shit from anyone

that is really cool dude shame I don't drive

well done creating your new content my advice would be do as many as consistently as you can and your quality will increase faster than if you are a complete perfectionist if in a years time you have done 52 or 100 and think you can can do the earlier ones better then - boom - redo them on a side note, here is a joke for you f of x walks into a bar... ... the barman says "sorry we don't serve functions"

George Bernard Shaw told a story about when he went to the opticians who assured him his eyesight was "normal" turned out he was one of only about 5% of people who had "normal" eyesight.

take two

here's tefan giving the rundown, form the Walter Block debate ((((media removed))))) I sped the audio up by 20% because I know a lot of people are more likely to listen to a short video than a long one teeheehee sadly I jsut realised the the beginning crapped up :/ I might have to fix it too much work to do atm

I am, and it was my intention, to finish the podcast. I have gone into more detail on my thoughts above, you can check it out. You may personally respond to shame as a strategy, for a lot of people it gets their hackles up. I have some considerable first hand experience in helping people improve their relationships and how they communicate and currently train as a counselor with the intention of using what I learn for the same purpose, not to appeal to authority, the literature on communication is quite ubiquitous on the fact that people who are defensive are less open to new information. I suggest you do some reading. For my own part I'll try and model alternative approaches and you can decide for yourselves which you prefer, perhaps you are right and different voices appeal to different people so there is a value in having more than one person doing it but in different ways.

Case in point I would say was the recent video about the woman who had circumcised her son. I'm only 5 minutes in but oh my god, this woman was already sorry she had done it and didn't want to do it again, and Stef is just piling on the shame What purpose does this serve apart from makign someone who feels shit feel even more shit? If this is what other people think they have to face for admitting they are wrong then they are far less likely to admit that they were wrong.

I'm so glad that I learned to ask for help finally. I get more because of it, I let myself accept the service of others.

My flatmate insists that because of the fiscal multiplier effect, minimum wage increases do not increase unemployment so long as they are reasonable because of the fiscal multiplier effect, people on low incomes spend their money in their local economy creating job growth vs. the people who are paying them who "horde it" as he puts it there seems to be a lot of evidence to support this position what is the debunk?

Omg you wrote a will! what a sensitive child you were!!! what a traumatic event, that fear of death and going to hell after such a short life this is a great post and may help lots of people empathise with their younger selves

Hi James thanks for the response, and sorry for taking so long to get back to you I noted in myself some reluctance to respond, for several reasons 1) Partly because I was quite busy and it would be emotionally demanding for me to do so, and I wasn't sure if it was the best use of my time. Perhaps I needed more time to process and think about it as well, but a friend asked me why I didn't respond and that got me thinking so here i am 2) I would much rather practice what I preach than be a backseat driver. Stef is doing great work and who am I to come on and start correcting him and saying he is wrong? The best thing for me to do is create content and show the alternative by example and let people make their own decision on the right approach. For that reason I suggest you watch my video on Gender Issues and compare the tone of it to Stef's on gender issues such as female violence and consider which tone is more likely to be convincing to feminists. (I got a few private messages from feminists said they thought it was very educational and good to get a man's perspective, only one told me it was a whole load of 'mansplain'.) On that topic, if you want to know what I think would be a more convincing tone to take, just watch Warren Farrell dealing with people who disagree with him, he is a master at keeping his cool and the integrity of his convictions while showing understanding to people who disagree. 3)I also felt a sense that no matter what I said it wouldn't be satisfactory to you and that this was not genuine curiosity but a chance to find fault with my reasoning and lay down my perceived "criticism" which is not what I think it was, it was my observation from my particular perspective which includes working as a communication coach to help people resolve conflicts. Now my suspicion could be completely misplaced, perhaps it was curiosity, but it was corroborated independently by another board member to me who expressed the same view that he felt irritation reading your post because he thought "Well i think no matter what you said in response he would have some answer to reject it. It wasn't genuine curiosity. Like, even if you explained it the way you explained it to me he would just say something like "well, out of all the people in the world are you saying Stef is the most harsh" or whatever. " I am not saying these judgments are true I just want to make you aware of them as background, before I share my views. Firstly, you assume I think something "has to be corrected" ... I did not say that. Perhaps something could be improved, but then on the other hand I accept: 1) Different tones speak to different people, maybe his particular tone is completely necessary 2) If we want to change the world we need lots of healers, everyone has a different style and part of that is their personality, it's no use if we are all carbon copies of one another. However, as you asked, lets construct an argument for Stef cutting people a bit more slack and see if there is any value in it Stef's gets more listeners because there is a NEED for the information he puts out there he is a charismatic speaker and he is doing good work. so he is not the one most in need of correction: 1) That is why I am reluctant to criticize him and would rather create my own content and lead by example, however, I do acknowledge that Stef speaks to a lot of people who are interested in doing some good in the world and that increases his responsibility because if he makes an improvement in his approach, potentially so do all his listeners. 2) However, that doesn't mean he wouldn't already have far more listeners if he took an approach closer to Warren Farrell's (for example.) [On the other hand, yet again, perhaps his tone is necessary, perhaps there is a certain audience that needs that "harsh task master" approach] 3) However, that doesn't mean that if Stef can improve his approach it wouldn't make it even more helpful to far more people, even if it doesn't need to be corrected Be advised, there is such a thing as a science of persuasion. Attributing negative qualities to people who don't share his position makes them less receptive to changing their views than giving them the benefit of the doubt. Stef says "lets be empirical, don't waste your time on politics, focus on peaceful parenting and ways of applying the NAP and reducing aggression in your own life." By his very own UPB he should consider the science of persuasion. One application may be not act like liberals, marxists, communists, etc. are evil for disagreeing with him or set himself up in opposition to them because this may make him very persuasive to people who already agree with his positions but it will make people who disagree with him opposition and LESS likely to change their opinion. The other day someone I knew posted a comment on a picture from a feminist saying "you are militant because you ignore facts that have been ignored" before posting a link to a Warren Farrel video debunking the pay gap, I just use this as an example because this makes the OP less likely to "eat humble pie" and say "hm those are interesting facts I have never come across them before" than if he's posted assuming the OP was open to new information, whether or not they actually were. similarly, when dealing with parents, Stef often dismisses any background information as "making excuses" when sometimes they are just providing context. Nothing happens in a vaccume. Some people do bad things because they are in a lot of psychological pain. That IS NOT an excuse, and it SHOULD NOT get them off the hook for appropriate consequences, but it may be some mitigating circumstances. Different people are in different degrees of psychological pain and have different defenses in play, being in psychological pain is not an excuse for hurting others, but, it makes you more likely to do it, Some peoples defenses are turned inward ("I will punish myself before you do") and some outward ("I can't take criticism so I will be aggressive to scare anyone away from ever criticising me") and no one has any obligation whatever to deal with anyone if they find their defense lead to them behaving in a way they find upsetting or hard to tolerate, however lets take a smaller scale example: Supposing you come home and I snap at you for no good reason, then I say "Sorry I had a bad day, and I'm just a bit sensitive right now, I'm a bit touchy, you've not done anything wrong." I am sure you are very likely to be very understanding and say "it's alright I'll give you some space," or even "Do you want to talk about it? But what if I have been trained to think I always have to be perfect otherwise I am not worthy of love, and I have a lot of blocks that make it hard to say that because it is admitting fault? You are under no obligation to tolerate my behaviour, however, supposing you were very present and talented at disarming me - you might instinctively say, "have you had a bad day you seem a bit edgy?" I go "uhhmmm uhhh... umm" You're like "I don't mind if you are, it's ok to say it" And maybe I'm then like "Well, to be honest perfectly honest, yeah... bla bla bla" That requires some flexibility on your part, and sometimes I don't think there is enough of that on Stef's approach On the other hand, in no way do I mean to suggest that Stef should be empathising with the parent when the caller is the victim, the attention should be fully on the caller, but perhaps when it comes to appeals to parents in this time all three components to a convincing argument which Aristotle pointed out (including pathos and ethos) not just logic could be considered. I recently saw a thread where a poster said "none of my relationships survived RTR", and maybe that person was surrounded by douchebags, or maybe RTR does not provide enough tools for disarming peoples defenses. Is there any obligation to disarm peoples defenses? Hell no! Is it useful to be able to do so where possible? Hell YES! Why? Well, Stef said are unlikely to meet a partner who is an anarchist , to one caller, but if you choose someone with critical thinking skills who is dedicated to reason and evidence as a caller you can create one over time. You may be unlikely to meet friends who feel safe being vulnerable, are excellent empathisers, can identify and discuss emotions, are great critical thinkers, who know how to problem solve and resolve context etc. But, if you become excellent at all these things and meet people who are coming from a place of reasonable integrity then you can create them. Sometimes that does not take a BAM all or nothing right now approach but a gradual growing of trust, the more they trust you the more unpallatable truths about themselves they can digest because they know you have their best interests at heart, you're not criticising them to do them down but to promote mutual understanding because you have a long history of being there for them, etc. Perhaps you don't disagree with a lot of that! Just throwing some views out there. As I said, i don't want to be a back street driver, I will make videos about effective communication and share them on youtube in the new year and you can judge for yourself if I am talking out my ass or there is a lot of truth to what I say. the best thing I can do is not whine about it, I need to start creating content modelling this behaviour, so that people can judge for themselves if I'm right and give me feedback if I'm wrong.